I’ve said before that more opinions and bullshit are traded into and out of our day to day lives than anything else, but recently I have been struck by a sudden sense of jealousy, sadness and urgency around one thing that I possess – or at least occasionally possess.Some may have noticed that I’ve been away from my blog for a little while – in short, we have dealt with a few bouts of sickness; the type that seems to do circles through the house for weeks at a time. Then an annual family vacation – the kind that never goes for long enough and always leaves you more tired than before. Oh and then a return of the sickness, plus finding out we have another baby on the way, then returning to a relentless and hectic work schedule that drains one of all creative thought and endeavour.

Its nice to be back though. I’m sitting on a plane on a Sunday night making my way interstate for what will be a week of flying, hotel rooms, meetings and computer screens. My 20 week pregnant wife is at home with our other child who has recently learnt that it’s not enough to merely say words as you learn them, but that you need to repeat them ever-more loudly until someone confirms that you have in fact said that word. “Car” he says on the way to the supermarket for groceries. My wife and I continue our conversation, building the usual list of items we must remember, knowing something important is probably going to be missed anyway... “Car”.“CAR”. “CAR CAR CAR CAR CAR CAR”“Yes son. Car”“Bike”…He has also taken to calling out his bodily functions. I worry about the day he will announce the arrival of a ripper butt-burp in church on a Sunday morning.They say that when you have children, the days are long but the years are short. Which brings me back to this recent sense of frustrated, jealous urgency I have been experiencing.Time has been on my mind.

“Every moment in your life is a compromise” – My Dad

While on our holiday, I managed to find some solo time with my old man. Even though he was on holiday, he was still handling final preparations for bringing a big client on board with the business he had launched about a year ago. Between sips of whisky sitting on the balcony and long silences listening to the waves crashing on the beach below the holiday house we had rented for the week; then the occasional phone call or random visit from my 18 month old to make sure I was still there, we talked about what all old men eventually talk about after afew drinks.

Time.

As migrants to a new country in the 80’s, my parents have never been strangers to work. I vaguely remember them both working 2 jobs when I was a kid, or bringing me along to help work on a house they were trying to flip, or jumping into a truck with the old man for an 18 hour day hauling whitegoods when one of the regular drivers called in sick. In short, I have always known my father and mother as the kind of people that both worked their arses off to try and provide anything above the bare essentials for their children. Now as adults, we have all had the opportunity to study and work, in turn creating families of our own.

When we got to talking about the pressures of life and family, my Father always steered the conversation towards the ceaseless search for opportunity in what limited time we have. I always found myself steering towards discussion about family. Then suddenly, there it was. The words we had both been searching for, from the mouth of the wiser. “Every moment in your life is a compromise”.

For my Dad, a hungering for a life without the endless carousel of work and home. To dream bigger dreams and retire without fear. He seemed to search back for a way to re-state his previous comment, then said nothing.

I felt myself realise for the first time that for every moment my father had chased his dreams, his passions, his love for family and his wish for their security, there had been a compromise elsewhere.

"...someone, somewhere, has compromised something that I already have, in order to have what I want." - Me

As a somewhat typical working geek I often spend much of my time reading articles and blogs or listening to podcasts (nerdy, right?) about business, entrepreneurial ventures, self-improvement, leadership and success. In the pursuit of a life better lived, of opportunities taken and the great aversion to failure or risk; one can overlook the idea that someone, somewhere, has compromised something that I already have, in order to have what I want.It’s quite a thought isn’t it? The person burning the candle at both ends to go from a Thought-leader to a 10x’er will likely not have the privilege(?) of sitting on the rug with their kids making fart jokes at 7 o’clock on a Tuesday night. The student throwing hours and hours at exam prep and accelerated courses to finally nail that post-grad probably isn’t spooning their wife (or doing the back-pack/reverse spoon) on a lazy Sunday night.

The levelling force in all ambitions and hopes seems to be time – at least to me. I wonder about what moments I have compromised in the wrong way, or what I will remember as the great milestones where my compromises were rewarded with a life still intact.I will admit to you all that right now I’m tired, exhausted even. I have no new advice or sagely wisdom to share beyond the throwaway comment from my father on holiday.Next week I will come back with the second post I’m working on - another thought regarding time; this one from one of my mentors – but for now, I would love to hear your thoughts about time and compromise. By all means leave a comment on here or on the Facebook page, I will make sure to get to it.

My wife and I had our first child about 18 months ago, and while I can honestly say it's been a great time of growth and challenge, I would also preface that with the notion that the usual "it's so rewarding" hasn't always felt completely true. There are a number of serious and sometimes harsh realities that you face as a new Dad; the least of which can sometimes begin with a traumatic birth, an exhausted and stressed household and the ever-present sense that you may in fact be a complete dumbass.

"Connecting" can take timeWhile some dads have a "love at first sight" moment, my story began with about 48 hours sans sleep, the shock of dealing with birth complications, followed by about an hour of silently trying to hold it together while waiting for our room to be prepared. Did I say silently? I meant that WE sat silently waiting for our room. During this time, we were treated to the sound of other ladies in active labour and giving birth too. At this point I didn't know if I was holding my baby, my grandmother, or a par-boiled cabbage.

Fast forward a few months and there I was looking at my baby and wondering why on earth I couldn't be remotely useful for anything that it needed. If baby cried, I somehow managed to make it worse. If it needed changing, I managed to take so long I got pee'd (or pooped) on, leaving my wife to step in while I dealt with a cleanup.

It can be a bit like that. The adjustment can be huge and you can often feel completely out of your depth. To top that, you sit back and watch your wife tend to everything the baby needs while you go to work and earn what barely feels like enough to keep the bills paid. If that sounds familiar, you may also understand why the sense of "connection" with baby can be hard.

Regardless of the background reasons and remedies (I wont go into more complex reasons why bonding with a newborn can be hard), it goes without saying that any baby needs bulk time with Dad before it even knows you exist. Being available to change nappies, help with feeds or bath time, performing a ritualistic rain dance and accompanying 3 part harmony to help it sleep can all be part of that bulk time, and it eventually pays off. I found that Quantity time was far more beneficial than whatever my concept of Quality time with my baby was for that first 6-9 months.

Becoming Dad begins with letting yourself changeIt's no surprise that change is hard. It's not easy to let your relationship with your wife change to include less time together, less sleep and more domestic duties. Getting to a place where you're comfortable with a baby's cries replacing your morning wakeup alarm - and sometimes 2 hours earlier than usual - is a process of evolution.

It's not without bumps. Huge ones. If you've ever seen a motocross crash video on youtube, you can often be the dude who left the bike at the on-ramp and made a 5 course degustation of whatever was at the other end. There are times when you wont even know the guy who just had that melt-down was. It may involve a metric crap-tonne of apologies and promises that you'll do better. Learning to have honest moments of introspection and decision takes time, practice and patience.

Accepting that my life has changed, my relationship with my wife can and will change, and that my child is ever changing - and then continually making the decision to evolve with the changes - has been a huge part of gaining that sense of "reward" that people so often talked about.

It can lead to a deeper level of relationship than ever before. It can also completely break it.I had never understood how subtly a relationship can become fragile or even fall apart until we had a child. As a follow on from the above point, the change can be a catalyst for personal growth and connection that you may have never felt before.

My wife and I had a wonderful, loving relationship for a number of years before we had our first child. Seeing my wife become a mother and being part of a new, different form of family relationship has both enhanced that relationship and put a massive strain on it. In what can sometimes feel like a strange form of confirmation bias, you can find yourself seeing the value in the relationship by the amount you've had to sacrifice for it - the problem with this idea is that it is not a basis for a great relationship in the long term.

There's some truth in the notion that everything worth having, is worth fighting for. The problem is that a relationship is not something that you can simply attain. We can never "have" a great relationship in that we cannot ever "possess" relationship. It is the product of an attitude of continued outpouring of love and affection, a giving of self to the benefit of the other person and your child/ren, and the vulnerability of laying down our own wants and even needs while hoping that the other person does the same.

It's this continual giving-over that can be that driver for deeper relationship. Seeing each other as less and less selfish, allowing each other room to grow and change, recognising the challenge to be a new person for the sake of family - And for this reason it can be incredibly thin and fleeting at times too. Continued sacrifice is not something that comes easily, we don't always get it right and it becomes even harder when you don't feel that it's reciprocated.

Learning to communicate in and through insecurities, stress and sheer exhaustion is a reactive, primal and sometimes revealing process. I understand how a couple can be worn down by attempts at relational intimacy and withdraw to domestic or parental roles. It can happen so subtly and quietly that we may not notice it until it needs huge effort to bring back - if it can even be brought back. Whatever deeper meaning, commitment and sense of love can be "had" from the evolution of a couple into parenthood can be very hard earned and hard fought.

There is an absolutely beautiful, powerful and raw sense of connection that can be had from becoming a Dad. I have never felt more certain of any aspect of who I am than in the identity of a Husband and Father.

I don't believe that everyone needs to be a parent or even a partner in order to have a beautiful, happy and complete life. Truth be told I always was, and still am a selfish person at times, and my personal experience suggested that the first year of becoming a parent was my most difficult year so far. Whenever I've wanted to drive the relationship with my child or my wife in the direction I wanted, I've always come away realising that it was myself who needed to change before the right change - the change we all needed - could really happen. I hope that's something that we can all identify with regardless of your relationship or parental status.

As always - like, share and leave comments below. I got a few comments on my last couple of posts and really enjoyed the insight you guys brought me.

You walk into your office/workshop/factory/dungeon and are greeted by an entire group of like-minded people who are great to and for each other. They enjoy each other’s company, there’s plenty of flow of ideas and hard work is completed without hiccups. Everyone gets together and shares what they’ve come up with, and disagreements are always dealt with gently, honestly, and with the appropriate care given to how each person may feel.

Sounds great doesn’t it? Sounds like the ideal working environment. Or the ideal social hang. But there’s a paradox at play in the above scenario.

Because I’m literally too lazy to cut and paste what I wrote above, I’m going to paraphrase myself with "Everyone got along, and the ideas were always flowing” or something along those lines.

Herein lies the problem. If you want creativity – real ideas – that stuff that isn’t just blue sky and cinnamon rings (that’s a saying, right?) – the stuff that turns into action and helps you really achieve at the coal face, to lay down a vision and just smash it out the park - you need a bit of discord. But not just any discord. Definitely not the virulent, terse type that leaves you completely drained after every encounter with your group. Or the type where you feel like you are literally the only one who doesn’t get heard. Or worse – like there’s only one person who is actually getting heard.Life is too short to surround yourself with assholes – amaright? (say it like one of the mob caricatures from the Simpsons). But - what if life is too short to limit your ideas to people who agree with everything you say and do? What if refining, shaping and proving your ideas through fruitful discord and abit of opposition is just the fire your idea needs to go from good to great?As leaders, we are often the first to get this wrong. Our nature wants to surround ourselves with support. We believe that if we could only get enough people behind our idea it’ll work out, as if validation is a proving force. Guess what? It’s not (but you already knew I’d say that).Below are some ideas that might help you get past the validation barrier and into that place of fruitful discord.

Do NOT surround yourself with people of the same personalityI cannot stress this enough. You do not get to the best place you can get to by surrounding yourself with yourself. You absolutely need to have people UNLIKE yourself in your circle of influence – note the term “influence”. Put people in that group that are both UNLIKE you, and that you will allow to INFLUENCE you. Struggle with this idea? Start with the basics: their experience, their achievements, their level of knowledge, education, empathy, awareness. If you’re an extrovert this will be difficult because you will want to only find people you can converse with. And guess who often sucks at quick and easy conversation? Yeah. Introverts. Have those conversations. The ones with the awkward silences. Ask questions. Probe into a person’s experience and knowledge – don’t let yourself believe that just because a person isn’t immediately good at selling themselves that they don’t have a huge amount to offer. If you’re introverted you have to push past your comfort zone and find people who inherently annoy you. They probably talk a lot but you can see past their flashy bullshit. They’re probably not the quiet achiever you are. They feel the need to have everything they have done recognised and seen by people. Or they’re great at getting in with other leaders, selling their ideas or steering conversation to their own advantage… or bulldozing it…Either way, you absolutely need the variety in your team.

Extroverts - amaright?

Set communication targets that push you - and vow to respect the pushIf you’re a big talker – set yourself a boundary that will make you talk less. If you’re a diagram drawer, make yourself put the pen down and get verbally descriptive. If you’re a quiet observer that never gets heard, set yourself a goal to say something in every meeting. Importantly - If you feel like your input never comes out how you want it to, push yourself to really define, refine and verbalise.When it gets hard, respect that you needed these targets and stick it out, it will be worth it.

Explore other peoples’ feedbackIf someone says they don’t like something, explore that. Explore why – ask people the questions that really get to the basis of why things don’t appeal. There is gold in every piece of real, honest feedback – sometimes you will need to go digging through the mud a little. Not everyone is good at sugar-coating their thoughts or feelings, especially when they have an opposing opinion. Try to cut back on having your own opinion heard and really understand the opposing one. Which leads me to…Exercise your backbone

Ok for those more sensitive readers, this may be the time to grab a pot of herbal tea. Maybe even some Echinacea. Or tap grandma’s bathroom cupboard for that good stuff... It’s time to talk about backbone. Specifically – learning to use one. Your own one. Reality is this – people will say and do things you don’t agree with. When you let opposition and quality discord into your circle of influence, you will start hearing more opinions that you don’t like – and that is the entire point.Not only will you need to hear more opposing opinions, you will need to learn to cop some flack without becoming a raging ball of hate.

I’ve said before that our post-GFC culture sees more opinions traded than money. You’ve gotta get used to hearing annoying opinions and handling some shit here and there. It takes skill to keep calm when someone is being critical of something you care about – but odds are that the people you let into your circle of influence are not there to dook in your favourite hat. You value their input, so learn to value it even when you’re not into what they say or how they say it.Look for the gold in what people say. I’m not going to go into the occasions where people are vindictive or jealous or whatever except to say that these will be rare. Most (all, really) of the time it is your verbal defence reflex kicking in – also commonly known as “not using abit of backbone”. Before I start sounding like someone’s Dad/Mom/little sister, I will say that keeping calm, respectful, and in control when being opposed is a skill that takes effort and time to hone. Just because you get it wrong every now and then doesn’t mean you can’t apologize and move forward. And do be the one to apologize.Have an honest assessment of your current circle of influenceGet real with yourself here. You’ll need to sit back and genuinely try to see your team as it is. You may need to cull the group down in order to restore some balance. If that’s not an option, maybe bring in some new faces. Where that can’t happen, it will take careful management of your own style and preferences to ensure that you listen just as intently to the quieter or grumpier folk in your group. You may even need to actively encourage those people to have a stronger role in your team – and this may even bring about a need to reduce the input volume of others in the team. Yep, the voices you like hearing.Saying “No” to the constant support of like-minded individuals can be a challenge. It can be frustrating, tiring and painful. It can also present us with a massive opportunity to grow beyond our comfort zones; to become more inclusive, to be more inquisitive, grow tougher mentally, stay calm and cool under pressure, and really gain that true insight and development that honest feedback brings about.

I bet when the US Department of Defence created the first network of PC’s they didn’t picture afew hundred million people chuckling to a video of a Korean dude dancing in a Maroon suit. Today’s post is all about how the modern internet and social media have enriched my life immensely.Yep. Nope. I may do one of those some day, but I’m lazy and it’s much easier to have a cry about the stuff that irritates me online, so below I’ve listed off some of my favourite things to hate online. Challenges – creating awareness for ignorance-sakeWhile not all viral challenges start out stupid, our penchant for both wanting to be told what to do, and then rolling whatever we are told further down to the lowest common social denominator will always come back to remind us that we should never have done it. It’s the snowball effect that comes about when you publicly do something stupid instead of just showing your friends. Who would in turn have only brought it up again at your wedding. This is usually late-teen and 20-something aged dudes because, let’s face it; there’s the sweaty combination of a shitload of free time and a strong urge for high-five based approval.

YYEEAAAHHHH BBBOIIIIIIIII

So, after downing the first of 4 morning coffees, here I am slaying my first deuce of the day and trying to rationalise the importance of someone’s situation, with some dude slamming 4 beers and jumping into a frozen lake. We really should stop pretending that doing something stupid for a laugh does anything good for anyone else’s cause. Unless the cause is “the urgent need to increase society’s threshold for dumb stuff in order to allow us to do even dumber stuff”. Then by all means let us collectively acknowledge this worthy cause and get on it asap.Awareness appropriation – that’s a thing, right? No Iggy jokes I promise. Now, there are certainly causes that could do with a boost in public awareness. They remind us that there are people in the world who suffer immensely while we argue over whether Coke or Pepsi mixes better with cask wine (totally a thing). However, I’m about to make a big call here – we suck at turning entertainment into knowledge, and then using that to motivate us for serious change. I don’t imagine that a whole lot of casual web users are stockpiling a cache of valuable information while posting a no-makeup selfie. Most of us are on here with the express interest of being entertained by random crap and hoping old friends got fatter than we have. When I have my game-face on for some straight up wisdom it usually doesn’t involve sitting on the couch in my jocks with a bag of Doritos. That’s when I am most likely to see someone’s first profile pic and go for a quick look at my own first profile photo. Then realise that I have been online for way too long.

Me before I grew a face…. Man I miss that haircut

Commenters who write an essay of their credentialsErmagherd you have worked drug addicted adolescents in Myanmar? Well allow me to share tales of dog-neutering in downtown Sao Paolo … Look, we get that you were in the Mounties for 20 years or whatever other things you preoccupied your life with before you became a full time e-meninist. While I won’t argue the value of anyone’s service and labour, I will point out that it doesn’t preclude anyone from being a total asshole. Just because you’ve had a front seat to whatever the author is writing about doesn’t mean you were always doing anything more than a mediocre job with that experience. Sure there are plenty of infuriating morons slinging garbage for truth, but before you cite the years of experience in cretinology and many associated white papers on social refuse, take a moment to ask yourself if this will actually serve to bolster your point, or make people write you off as a colossal douché (<that is not a typo. I say it right or I don’t say it at all)

Refusal to use the word “ass” lends much credence to his grumpy-dad cred.

E-Activism – hammering on causes that only you give a shit aboutHave you ever had the awful experience of liking a band’s facebook page, only to realise that they’re full blown nudists? Me either. But often when we add acquaintances to our friends list, or click “like” on a public figure/figures’ Facebook page, we sign ourselves up to a freshly discovered acute awareness of how horrible our lives are without legal weed. Or how much damage the vaccines are doing. Or worse – how stunted or crippled my baby will be if it’s not breast-fed. Forget the years of love and attention you’ll be pouring into this child – THE TIT OR QUIT.The internet can be a pulpit. A big polished timber one with a staircase on either side and like a minimum of 4 microphones on it. The stage is set… take the floor… walk up to that platform, and then – BOOM say the same thing over and over and over… and over again as if you aren’t quite sure that people are getting it. Believe me when I say, people are getting it. But along with “it”, they are also getting that your online persona is one-dimensional and maybe a little… *taps nose*We’ve all been guilty of getting a little over-excited online. A pinch of obnoxiousness reminds everyone that there’s a human on the other end. But let’s try to remember that a pinch is a pinch. Sprinkle that shit on a little here and there to let people know you can be salty mofo – I won’t hate you for it. But when it’s time, leave a little crazy at the door before you sit down to write that post. Again.

Pranks – the internet version of small kids being assholes, appended with “but it’s opposites day”This one is quick because it goes without saying, but I’m gonna say it anyway because I’m fresh like that: dub-tee-eff is with videos of people being assholes and calling it a prank? Walking up to a group of black people and using the “N” word is not – and should never, ever, ever be referred to as – a prank. Getting into someone’s personal space and making lewd comments also does not qualify as prank-worthy. It makes you a gigantic ass clown. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with calling yourself an asshole or a shock-jock and trying to flog your wares to the public online. TV shows were doing it for years in the 80’s and the canned laughter made up for the utter lack of substance and personality. We now get it streamed to our mobile phones via a news feed and youtube channels. Good on you for making a buck. But FFS do not yell “Stop it’s a prank” when you’ve just invaded someone’s space, touched them inappropriately or embarrassed them for likes and hits. Its not in any way a prank. Its just people being dicks.I sometimes wonder what the internet will be when my children grow old enough to sit here ranting like a grumpy bastard at 11 at night. Honestly, it worries me that we are giving away our b-game to more and more people each day. I swear that there’s probably only a few dozen people who have ever seen me on my worst behaviour. Now the potential to let our collective idiocy do the rounds for millions is so strong, I feel an odd pressure not to ruin this good streak I have going. I’m sure somewhere on here there’s some shit people will dig up one day to prove I’m a moron but for now I’m ok because the greater internet populous is still ignorant to my true idiocy.Like/Comment/Share – would love to hear what other e-foolery you’ve dealt with. And with the massive, massive readership I currently have I am sure that you will be crazy surprised to see your comments even make it onto the list :)

While I'm no expert in leadership and won’t ever write any books that I myself would read, I've worked as a leader and manager for a number of years, managed teams within a number of voluntary and event groups, and also find myself at the helm of the world’s most important organisation – the suburban middle class working family (boom).Killing your DarlingsProbably one of the biggest lessons I’ve had reinforced in my career over and over is the idea that to truly grow beyond our past achievements, we need to learn when to stop hanging our hat on them. I was bitch-slapped with this truth paddle while working for a large utility company a few years ago. I'd come into a new job tasked with producing a large and complex strategic report and building the associated systems that supported it in the long term. Now don’t hate me just because I score all the rad jobs ok?Fast forward a year and it had all gone amazingly well. I had received some good feedback from key stakeholders and ultimately the proof was in the pudding – people were using it and getting what they needed.I had a meeting with my boss at the time, and he promptly dived in and said “It’s time to walk away from the system. You’ve done a great job with it but I need your focus on this new thing now.”Unbeknownst to me at the time, he had just smashed some sagely shit my way. Hanging your hat on something you’ve already done will only set your benchmark in the past. Like that friend who only ever talks about the goals they scored before mortgages, businesses and family pressures got in the way. This happens when you want to keep the party going on the last thing you did well. Nailing the target, celebrating appropriately and then moving on is a habit that can allow you to recharge, refresh, and reset your benchmark so that you can move on to new things. This becomes even more important when you screw up…In killing your darlings, you learn how to lose the shadows too. When the project you are managing goes downhill, or it burns to the ground before it even has roots – you have to know when to stop holding on to whatever good or poor outcome you got, and push yourself to evolve beyond it. Being free to start something new with completely fresh eyes is a gift that only you can give yourself. Naturally, I’ve had a sneaky peek at that system since I moved on and there are heap of things I would do differently to make it better. But I won’t. Unless ya boy gettin paiiiiddd!!!! (<---I wrote this to be read in a sports-douche celebration voice, but feel free to read it however way you want)

My palm had moved on from being sweaty to tingling to numb to outright sore. Eventually, the blood began returning to my finger tips. At this point I was holding a beautiful, healthy baby with the most beautiful little rosebud lips i'd ever seen, and yet the birth process had been so exhausting and traumatic that we could barely keep our eyes open as we waited in the birthing suite for our room to be made available.

Shit you not, I cried a lot that day. Not movie tears either. That ugly shit that you try to choke back and end up looking like a sad clown with sticky boogs firing out of both barrels. It was emotional overload. I'd been initiated into parenthood and I managed to hold it together without puking of anxiety. I made a lot of promises that day too. And in the toilet of all places.

I had understood something innate and experienced incredible, impossible love. It was the beginning of a closer bond with my own mother, a profound respect for my wife, and a deeper understanding of my own faith.

It makes sense that my first post would be about the day my first child was born. Becoming a parent has been an unbelievably transformational force in my relationships, my career, and my interests. I hope to share more of this with you in the coming posts.